Corrections sued for data on out-of-state parolees

AUGUSTA — A prosecutor, a sheriff and a police chief have filed a joint Freedom of Information suit against the Maine Department of Corrections to acquire information about out-of-state parolees who seek to serve out their parole in Maine.

The suit was brought after the trio sought information last December about a Colorado rapist who mutilated his victims and was seeking to serve his parole in the Waterville area. The DOC wouldn’t supply information on the criminal.

David W. Crook, district attorney for Somerset and Kennebec counties, Waterville Police Chief John Morris and Kennebec County Sheriff Bryan Lamoreau sued the DOC on Jan. 13 in Kennebec County District Court.

The suit was sparked when Crook received information that a three-time convicted rapist from Colorado, who had mutilated his victims, was seeking to serve out his parole in central Maine. The man, who reportedly has a brother who lives in Waterville, had applied to come to Maine under a national agreement, the Uniform Interstate Compact, which allows prisoners to be paroled in a state other than the one where they were convicted.

Crook said Monday that he received a tip from a person working inside the DOC that the Colorado man had applied to Maine. When Crook contacted the DOC for information, his request was refused. He said Lamoreau and Morris joined him in seeking information about the prisoner, and they too were refused data.

“We believe that Vacationland is being offered as a mecca for rapists,” said Crook. “In 1976 Maine eliminated parole, yet we have a brand-new influx of parolees coming here from other states.”

Calls to DOC Commissioner Martin Magnusson and Associate Commissioner Nancy Bouchard seeking information about the issue were not returned.

Efforts to reach Assistant Attorney General Diane Sleek, who is handling the case for the DOC, were unsuccessful.

In the past several years, said Crook, more than 200 out-of-state inmates have applied to serve their parole in Maine.

“We have accepted 111. My questions are: Who are they? Where are they? And what are they?”

Crook said he believes the information he requested from the DOC is public. In a letter written in early January by Bouchard, the information was denied. The associate commissioner called the release of information regarding people who receive DOC services “discretionary.”

In essence, said Crook, DOC policy is that if it grants a parole request, the department will inform the local law enforcement agencies. If it turns down a request, it is not public information and no one will know that the person applied.

“It’s too late to tell us about the request after it’s been granted,” said Crook. “Decisions of this magnitute are not issues where the public does not just have a right to know. The public has a need to know.”

The district attorney maintained that a person applying from out of state is not receiving services here in Maine and therefore the information is not confidential. Law enforcement agencies should not be cut out of the process, which Crook called secretive and abusive.

“DOC said they are exercizing their discretion not to provide the information. Why? Because I’ll give the information to the public,” said Crook. “If you had a mutilating sex offender moving in next door to you, wouldn’t you want to know? And if the DOC had moved that rapist there, how would the DOC look? It’s public relations for them. Pure and simple.”

The district attorney maintains that if the Colorado prisoner’s record is public in Colorado, it is public here in Maine. “All I am asking is the applicant’s name, date of birth and convictions. The Department of Corrections cannot keep the application confidential.

“The only thing secret here is the process,” he said. “They are just looking to avoid Megan’s Law.”

“Megan’s Law,” a national initiative signed into law by President Clinton last May, requires that all states maintain sex offender registries and notify communities before the release of convicted sex offenders. Each state had until September to take action or lose federal anti-crime funding.

Three years ago, Megan Kanka, 7, was lured into the New Jersey home of Jesse Timmendequas, a neighbor who also happened to be a convicted sex offender. Once she was inside, Timmendequas sexually assaulted and strangled the girl with a belt.

In 1992, Maine established its own sex offender registry of all criminals convicted of gross sexual assault of juveniles under age 16, according to Dorothy Morang of the State Bureau of Identification.

Sex offender registration information is available to the general public through state and local police or through the Bureau of Identification.

Nearly 200 sex offenders are registered with the Bureau of Identification, living free in communities statewide, according to Morang, but this registry does not include those convicted of sexual crimes against adults or those from other states who want to come here.

No date has been set for the civil suit. Crook will represent himself and the other law enforcement officers.